Lesson 7 – Pattern Practice in Livermore

The next several lessons are most likely going to be very similar. Pattern practice is essential because in order to solo, the instructor needs to feel confidant that you will be able to land the plane safely all the time. One of the key items toward this goal is teaching the student that you do not have to land at every attempt. In fact, it is good to set some parameters for yourself when making an approach. If any of those parameters are not met, it is best to go around and try the approach and landing again.

We have established two go-around parameters in the previous lessons. The first is if we bounce on the landing and the second is if we are not close to the center line. Both conditions warrant a go-around. For this lesson, we added a third item and that is setting an abort point. It is a good idea to do this, even on long runways because it gets you used to setting up good approaches and landings.

Our abort point was the second taxiway that led off of the runway. This taxiway was about a third of the way down the runway so if I had not touched down by then, the plan was to go around. On my first landing I touched down right at that spot but did not go-around and my instructor said that I should have gone around. He asked why I did not go-around when I reached my abort point and I said that I touched down right at that point so figured it was close enough. He said that is how most people think. They are fixated on getting down so much that they bend their own rules. Granted, our landing was safe and we stopped well before the end of the runway but if conditions were different or we had a shorter runway, our outcome may not have been the same. His point was well taken and I did not do that again.

Now I digress back to the beginning of the flight. Today we are flying out to Livermore airport. Livermore has two runways, one really big runway and another that is much smaller but still a little bigger than Palo Alto. The plan was to depart Palo Alto on a right Dumbarten bridge departure. We would climb and level off at 2000 feet. Once we got across the water and over Coyote Hills then we would start our climb to 3000 feet. This keeps us under the Class Bravo airspace but high enough to clear the hills on the way to Livermore.

Since we are navigating VFR and not using any VOR radials, we have to navigate by sight. We looked at a terminal chart before the flight and discussed the landmarks we would use as reference points. After we passed Coyote Hills, we should be able to see a bunch of lakes at the base of the hills. We were to fly in between these lakes until we flew over Sunol Golf Course. Golf courses are very easy to see from the air because the land is all brown out here so the green fairways of the golf course are a big contrast to the surrounding terrain. Also the golf course was right next to a major highway so if we couldn’t see, then we could follow the 680 highway until we came upon it.

If you look at a terminal chart, you will see little maroon colored flags in various locations on the chart. These are called reporting points and since they are marked on the map, air traffic control has to know where those points are. Typically, they are located 10 to 20 miles from the airspace you are about to enter. Since we were about to enter Class Delta airspace which is controlled by Livermore Tower, I dialed in the tower frequency. “Livermore Tower, Citabria 374 Delta Mike is over Sunol, inbound for pattern work with Alpha.”

“Citabria 374 Delta Mike, enter left downwind runway 25 left, report 1 mile on 45.” What this means is that we are entering the downwind at 45 degrees to the airport runway and we are to report to the controller when we are approximately 1 mile from the airport. We are also flying a standard left pattern which means we fly a racetrack course around the airport and make only left turns. I was hoping we would get the big runway but it is better practice for me to be on the small runway.

So, around and around we went for about 7 landings. I had about 3 approaches that were too long. I think there were several factors that contributed to this. One, the pattern altitude here is a couple hundred feet higher than Palo Alto so you have further to descend and two, there was a long stretch of brown grass before the runway which made the perspective look a bit different. I always felt that I was lower than I really was.

I ended up having about two or three good landings this day. I was a little bummed at that because I really felt like I was starting to get the hang of this in my previous lessons. My instructor says I am being hard on myself. The landings were all safe which is what counts. Ironically, I was reading the recent issue of “Flying” magazine and there is an article written by Tom Benenson about what it is like to go through pilot training. One paragraph of this article struck a chord with me.

“Even as you build your capability step-by-step from one skill to the next, there will be days when nothing seems to go right. One day you’ll feel you’re the ace of the base and everything will click, you’ll feel confident and proud, but the next time you try something you’d thought you’d mastered, it just doesn’t come together the way it should. It happens. You’ve reached a learning plateau, something that afflicts almost every student. Like a batter’s slump, you’ll start hitting again; you just have to hang in there and get over it.”

On the plus side, when you fixate on a certain aspect of your flying that you are not 100 percent satisfied with, the thing you forget is there is a lot more to flying than just that one skill. In the process of getting to this area to practice these take-off’s and landings, I had to perform the pre-flight, start, taxi, run-up, takeoff, departure procedure, climb, navigation, and talking to air traffic control. These things have become second nature now and thus they don’t get mentioned much in my writings anymore like they did at the beginning. That is part of learning and I am sure by the time I get to the end of my training, I probably won’t be mentioning my approaches and landings much anymore because they will be old news.

In fact, the part I look forward to the most is my cross country training. This is the reason I wanted to fly in the first place; to get to a destination and to enjoy the scenery enroute. This lesson gave me a taste of that as it took about 15-20 minutes to get out to Livermore so I got to look around a bit. On a cross country flight though, we will be spending an hour or more between destinations and we will have several destinations in the same day so I will get to enjoy it even more. However, knowing my instructor, he will find things for me to do to stay busy during our flight.

My next lesson is on Thursday and I am not sure exactly what we will be working on but I am guessing it is more pattern work which is fine with me. I need to get this down so I can move on to my solo flight. Until next time, take care...